The Queen Mother and Prince Philip battled over his decision to install telephones in Buckingham Palace, a new documentary has revealed.

The Duke of Edinburgh, now 97, apparently clashed with his mother-in-law in the 1950s after he removed the footmen who used to take messages from one royal to another.

Speaking of the Queen Mother, who died aged 101 in 2002, biographer Robert Lacey said: ‘There she was unashamedly harking back to when Britain had an empire – charming, aristocratic, frankly snobbish, no pretence of actually living in the 20th century.’